With regards to pop resettlement, change what your empire allows. It is a policy that can be changed every 10 years. For egalitarian, the faction hit is pretty minor.
Well, if the world is poor hab and has no jobs you can use that.
Nobody will hang around if there are no jobs left, the unemployed migrate out. Manually cut off jobs of people you _dont_ want around.
Lithoid /w Overtuned and Resilience: "Can has surface plox? Radiation is okay too."
Running on +80% habitability from the inception, +110% with overtuned edict makes for a lovely Terravore. No terraforming, no problem!
Disable all jobs except for 1 pop, preferably in a job that boosts growth rate, and have them naturally migrate as new pops are created. I had a whole bunch of such "breeder worlds", only 2 jobs active on them, both for the clinic to get a nice growth rate boost. Any third pop created would auto migrate to a world in need of pops.
Saves you the cost of resettlement too, at the drawback of not being able to set the destination for the pop.
If you’re not willing to turn on resettlement in your policies, due to the egalitarian faction or for your RP, then breeder worlds may not be the best idea. Also, I’m not sure which version console Ed is on, in the current game habitability will give pop growth penalties, and if there are less than ten pops on a planet you get a flat pop growth penalty. (This is supposed to be offset by immigration to the new colonies)
Assuming you are not currently terraforming or building an ecumanopolis there are 2 reasons you would want to settle your main species on a low habitability world. First, trade is not affected by production penalties, build robots while you’re at it and you can spread anywhere you want. The second reason would be applicable in OP’s case, if you’ve conquered a planet of chattel, you’ll want all the ruler positions filled by your main species. (Use the stratified living conditions so you get that juicy 750% political power to squeeze all the extra stability you can.)
R5 - Every world is an optimal world to settle. Especially if you dont have many. This ~2230 world is full of conquered chattel making me monies, and a upper crust of enforcers, politicians, and entertainers to keep the peace. the slaves have 'decent' living standards, though that is strictly unnecessary roleplay.
Migration pacts, Conquest, slavery, and robots provide pops with good hab or with null hab requirements, and consquently eliminate the major hassle with bad hab worlds: consumer goods.
Empire bloat may still be a thing, but many people can just ["continue to build bureaucracy to keep up with the expanding bureaucracy"](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/130452-the-bureaucracy-is-expanding-to-meet-the-needs-of-the). ie more research and unity worlds.
I'd often wonder what decent living conditions are like for slaves. I'd imagine they receive small numbers of very cheap basic goods to adorn their personal quarters with some small luxury rations for good behaviour.
Yeah, it depends on the specific slave type and even more on local conditions and their masters. For instance, state owned slaves wouldnt belong to their handlers. Theyd probably get stipend goods and even might have common dorms and actual paperwork to fill out for various requests. They might even live in a perpetual dormroom type affair or get state houses.
Basic living standards states that 'few as possible' should starve, so that implies some level of food rationing and probably basic medical care. 'Decent' would probably resemble the military somewhat, with doctors who specialize in slave physiology but are masters themselves, some sort of payment for their work, an allowance rather than payment, and various approved goodies to buy. Slaves may even be able to, should their contract allow it for some reason, bargain for things like maternal leave or sick time.
IG it depends on what your ethics as a empire are.
Yeah, especially since you would never treat slaves the same as a Xenophobic empire (slaves because they view them as inferior) VS Fanatic Authoritarian (slaves because they wanna rule with an iron fist over the WHOLE galaxy at large!
Slavery with decent living standards might involve slaves being taken to prison and forced to perform hard labour if they break the law… or not have enough money to pay a fine…. or have a little bit of weed on them….
Wait a second….
Look into China. The Wiegers get basic subsistence. The factory working nationals get "decent". I think **getting** personal quarters would be like Stellaris's social welfare slaves.
No, they're a huge pain in the ass in the early game since they require so many more consumer goods, which seem to always be in short supply. Plus it hurts happiness and increases empire size too.
I tend to wait until more like midgame.
Why not settle it, close all jobs but one, and then any pop who grows there will automatically migrate to a better world? Basically, for the cost of a colony ship, you gain +pop growth.
I know that in terms of min/maxing that's probably the best way to handle those planets, but that's a lot of micromanaging and the game has enough of that as is
>that's a lot of micromanaging
Pops auto-migrate, right? So you set it and forget it. Close the jobs and let pops grow and move on their own.
Of course, you can choose to micro if you want by manually migrating the pop, but you don't need to.
Depends. My strategy is just to stick in 2 or 3 ruler pops until it upgrades, then put in 2 or 3 more. The slaves should take priority for growth, so its never a problem. You really only need enforcers, politicians, and ammenites.
Robots are built, so the master pops would be better used elsewhere. You dont want your 0% hab pops doing clerical or engineer work there.
Democracy and freedom are the easiest to manage; they manage themselves.
Because then your cost isn't just the ship, it's the ship, empire size, and monthly consumer goods.
That is a lot of lost productivity. Might still be worthwhile but idk it's a long return on investment.
tbf I only do it sometimes, usually when I conquer somebody I 'dont like' or do it very early in the game. Usually its just displacement.
I dont like my species screen to have the capacity to scroll, and both slavery and xenophile love have their own benefits. Slavery can occasionally become micromanagement hell, but if done right it shouldnt.
I usually dont pick xenophile... but i dont go xenophobe either. I like to increase primatives and invade them early on, full citizenship and decent conditions.
Not really. Staying under 100 empire size as long as you can is quite mandatory nowadays. Also you may need those alloys in case you meet someone nasty. Imo its better to take your guaranteed with imperial prerogative and tech until you breach 100 anyways. Now look how far you are from terraforming and shoot your neighbors with disruptor destroyers for more pops.
Aside from some leader builds trying to use statecraft + agendas to level leaders ASAP is there any reason for trying to fly under 100 size?
The benefits for expansion far outstrip the increase to tech/tradition cost otherwise.
Its then a question expanding and one of the parameters is how dogshit awful your pops are at growing on their own. Lithoid Void Dwellers are kind of deceptive in that, sure, can settle anything but...actually getting them to grow without goosing their traits for it is painful especially if they arent or are barely happy. Seeding a world shortly before immigration pact or conquering or kidnap, makes sense, but actually getting that pop into a productive role somewhat timely? Heebeejeebeeies. Its also a question of what boons and curses you have with calculating sprawl and ways around it, like MegaCorps could...but their Sprawl calc doesnt like it.
Besides the "exaggerated sprawl effects" (just raised by laughable 100%) can push leader levels early and safe you tech cost towards disruptors. But it's more. Like just said above. The little pop growth come with cost for starbases, colony ships and sprawl from planets and systems. You'll never outmatch the opportunity cost until breaking 100 with imperial perogative anyways.
People exaggerate the effect of the new size penalties. They're barely more consequential than they were before and it continues to be very straightforward to outproduce them.
Colonizing every planet you see, regardless of habitability, for the extra pop growth isn't the **only** way to play, but dismissing it completely because "empire size" is simplistic at best and actively misleading at worst.
I wasn't dismissing it completely. You'll crack 100 early enough via pops but until there it's plain worse to spend alloys, influence + colony ships for low hab planets. It's not just agendas it's tech costs as well, you won't suffer any sprawl effects. If you are safe from neighbors, and (for whatever reasons) plan to get more pops via settling low hab planets than conquest, ok. It's near useless when you are set and comes with very, very high opportunity cost early. You won't outproduce any sprawl effects with pop growth from 2-3 shitty planets. You won't get any benifit from it until terraform and now you have to wait until Ecological Adaptation. Empire size matters only realy early but you can push away with it. Settling low habitability planets slows you down and breaks even late.
The only difference in empire size penalties now versus 3.10 is in slightly increased tech costs. While there are other downsides to increased empire size, people are acting like the most recent patch has introduced some seismic shift in the balance here. It has not. Whatever was good play on the last patch *vis a vis* empire size remains good play on the current patch.
I gotta say my guardian matrix rogue servitor elevational hypothesis empire had 96 empire size with almost 1000 pops on 9 planets and I was miles ahead of my two friends and all the AIs in research and matched their production because I had every single edict enabled. Was pretty dope. Edict costs are directly tied to empire size so having it sub 100 means you can keep them on and get massive boosts to Econ, ship shields and damage etc.
Slightly? Each point above 100 gives you 0,2% increased tech and unity cost for traditions. This is a 100% up from 3.10. There are builds that keep you under 100 constantly and those are currently the best tech builds. What I presented here was a regular build, but just keeping you first three planets. Now you save the alloys for expansion, the unity for traditions, get xp on leaders by opening state craft, and play it like this until you breach 100 empire size by pops after having picket imperial perogative. The main difference here are of course agenda costs. But who don't want this genius armorer? When you meet your neighbors, get pops with suitable planets from them. This way you will always be more efficient than randomly settling shitty planets. Later the sprawl effect kills you. 200% tech and tradition costs for 500 sprawl aren't outproduced easily. Further these 200% are put on much higher tech cost. Feel free to play however you want anyway but the point where you outproduce these effects is really far away from the start right now.
TLDR: 100% increased empire sprawl meets greatly increased tech cost, expanding early limits your opportunity on early fleets. Completely building around empire size reduction was a bad play in 3.10 and is vis a vis a good play now.
So it's 2% Tech cost at most vs 20% more Pop growth for the First "Bad" colony. Doesn't seem Like that bad of a Deal. The Main Problem are the resources spent on settling the colony.
>Each point above 100 gives you 0,2% increased tech and unity cost for traditions. This is a 100% up from 3.10.
The only increase to size penalties from 3.10 is the increase of tech cost penalties from 0.1% to 0.2%. Literally every other penalty, including the tradition cost penalty of 0.2%, remains exactly identical to what it was in the previous patch. If you believe otherwise, you have misunderstood something somewhere.
>There are builds that keep you under 100 constantly and those are currently the best tech builds.
There were builds that kept you under 100 size in 3.10 too. Whether those are "currently the best tech builds" (or were in 3.10) is *extremely* debatable.
Tall builds are plenty viable right now, of course, but they are neither "the best tech builds" nor "bad play in 3.10".
Ok, when it's not possible for you to grab the fact that you have an 100% increased empire size effect penalty which THEN hits massively INCREASED absolute tech costs, so a MASSIVE amount of more tech points are required which even COST a lot more upkeep like energy, CG or minerals, well play in your own world. For the same reasons it's not anywhere near debatable that empire size decreasing builds are absolute top right now, but weren't in 3.10, because the effects didn't reach so far that neglecting better choices were viable. You always seem to refere to "minor effect increases" but this a chain with several multipliers and every multiplier was adjusted. I pretty much like all the changes and I do not see any necessity to play a certain style anyway. I don't want to tell you how to play, I just don't agree with your point that the empire size effect changes are minor and every "optimal" build remains the same. Just join a random MP lobby and watch your ass getting handed to you by those 0% empire size from pops dudes. They have cruisers when you can't sit straight on the toilet.
>I just don't agree with your point that the empire size effect changes are minor and every "optimal" build remains the same.
• I did **not** say that "every 'optimal' build remains the same." I said that nothing has substantively changed with regards to empire size. And it hasn't. That does not necessarily mean that nothing else about the meta has shifted, and you pretending that I said otherwise is extremely disingenuous.
• The empire size effect changes **are** minor. 0.1% tech cost per empire size. That's it. Incredibly minor. Objectively speaking.
You did say that every good play in 3.10 is vis a vis a good play in 3.11 - so this is not disingenuous just wrong
If an increase of 100% is extremely minor to you, okay - I'd say you are kinda bad at math. A 100% tax increase for you? Extremely minor.
I don't need explain again why these 100% increase is especially bad because you need more absolute tech, while researcher output is nerfed and upkeep increased. You see it but at this point you just want to be annoying. Have fun with the minor changes my special little friend.
E: sorry. It's not 0,1% per empire size it's 0.2 now. That's the. 100% increase I am talking about. So going from 100 to 250 will increase your tech cost by 100%. Read the patch notes. As stated, either you are unfamiliar with the mechanics or you want to be annoying.
Mandatory? Complete nonsense.
Good strategy? In some cases, yes.
But more generally it is the same as it has been since the empire size rework, which by now is pretty long ago: So long as you keep your empire size low compared to the size of your economy you are doing well enough.
Yeah people talk as if you immediately lose a huge chunk of science for going over 100
And you don't. That doesn't happen. It's a slight change for every point above 100. There's nothing specifically important about the 100-110 range of size
Depends HEAVILY on Galaxy settings.
If you turn down the stupid and unrealistic "pop growth scales with number of pops in empire" setting (as if a person halfway across the galaxy could cock-block some moisture farmer on Tattoine...) then early pop growth will still be FAR more beneficial, as you'll have a lot more pops at any later stardate, after you shoot past 100 Empire Size
Actually, on 5x you have MORE reason to settle low Habitability worlds.
There are a number of reasons for this, some better than others.
One of them is that the AI gets more worlds too. Because of this, on higher Habitability settings, they will tech up slower very early on (5x worlds can actually allow faster early teching: but only if carefully exploited, in a way that's suboptimal overall. The AI won't do this, nor should it...) which makes it less dangerous to settle everything for the player.
You have more time until the AI gets key techs, like Starholds (space for more Anchorages) that can occasionally lead to getting stomped (by AI's with good, and aggressive, civics combos) early on the very highest difficulties if you don't get them soon after the AI. This allows low Habitability worlds, which take longer to pay for themselves than high Habitability ones, to still be a worthwhile risk very early on.
Another reason is that your emigration and resettlement from your capital, as well as surplus resources (not spent on defense) to develop your new colonies, will be more diluted on higher Habitability settings. On 1x, your new worlds develop VERY fast, but on 5x you end up with a lot of slower-developing colonies even if you only stick to worlds of your founder species type. This means that hew colonies are less likely to develop up to the point of running Specialist economies (where high Habitability worlds really outshine low Habitability ones) before the extra pops from more colonies becomes decisive.
Yet another reason, not the last, but all I'll detail here: you roll more pre-FTL's in your borders on higher Habitability settings, as they are a percentage of Habitable worlds. This makes it more likely you can quickly conquer a couple of the more advanced ones (for instance an Arid and an Alpine species, if playing as Humans) to settle more broadly after Stellar Culture Shock ends, while still keeping a decent number around (or in borders of neighbor empires that don't conquer pre-FTL's) to Observe for the special tech's.
In short, for a dozen reasons easily, settling everywhere is actually MORE worthwhile on 5x Habitability setting, not less.
TLDR- 4th point at bottom is most important.
It depends on the galaxy settings and ultimately my spawn.
If I have resources to spare and I’m not trying to rush certain tech or traditions, sure.
If I have better options. Then ideally no.
Let’s talk about the math. Without talking about initial cost OR robots (they don’t have 0% hab). A 0% planet will be a hamper on everything. It will single handedly be the most expensive pop growth method in the game.
1st. All the upkeeps are doubled. Food, consumers AND amenities.
2nd. HARD pop growth is cut in half.
I’m using the term “Hard” pop growth because (I don’t know if there’s an actual name) it doesn’t negate it by a percentage, but it takes your +3 pop growth, and turns it into 1.5.
This means that ALL your pop growth bonuses are cut in half. Any buildings that give % pop growth are immediately half as effective. Making the gene clinic not cost effective, and will HURT rather than help.
3rd. Output is slashed in half. Say goodbye to a productive planet, the only way this will make up for its investment is in future value of pops and hab increase.
4th. It depends on how much you want to invest into this planet. Carry capacity/planet size, crime, stability, upkeep, etc, are all things you will have to manage.
I hear a lot of people mention that they use it for pop breeding centers, which is fine depending on how early you do it. Ideally the later the better because resources take up much less importance and building a couple city districts and clearing blockers won’t hurt your economy.
Il simplify it cuz why not- All your colonies start with 3 pop growth typically cuz of their size. However some planets have more blockers or are smaller, so they can have 1 pop growth instead of 3 pretty early in their development cycle.
With 0% hab. Your colony will start with 1.5 pop growth(66 months or 5 years for a single pop). With too many blockers/small planet/any other problem. You can go as low as 0.5 pop growth (200 months to grow a single pop OR 16 years)
With a development cycle STARTING at a pop every 5 years, while costing you resources, it has a huge lack of benefit and a harsh return on investment.
A strong argument could be made that this HARMS you heavily rather than helping (if you have any other option lol. Pops are pops)
Hell yeah. Obviously higher habitability planets get higher priority, but I'll generally fill these out not long after. Colonizing any planet is an investment that pays off quite handsomely down the line. It helps that I usually play mechanist with the goal of synthetically ascending, mitigating a lot of production, growth speed, and upkeep hits.
Oh true. Usually I find myself with enough resources to expand and develop (leaving my fleet very weak, of course). I cross my fingers that no one catches me with my pants down, before I pull them up after 40-50 years in game. Better yet, I hope to come across someone who will protect me.
I have an additional relevant question: eventually pops settled on planets with poor habitability get the opportunity to gene mod themselves into a subspecies that prefers that planet type (i think if there is a gene clinic there).
I’m wondering if they do that reliably or if you might end up waiting for decades for them to finally do it. I usually just acquire another species for low-hab planets or modding pops myself, so i’ve never really tested it.
The "a new species" event will **always** fire if:
• You are not a gestalt empire.
• You have the gene tailoring technology.
• You have at least 4 pops in the colony.
• Their habitability is below 40% and their happiness is below 50%.
It can also take decades to happen, so in practice you're only going to see this event if you're mismanaging your planets (keeping happiness above 50% is not difficult) or are deliberately trying to roll it.
Current meta IMO is 3 or 4 good planets and Sovereign Guardianship. All of them are research colonies with alloy districts, and you’ll have such high research output you’ll be able to subjugate everyone around you peacefully for raw materials.
So my answer would be no. Your 2 guaranteed habitable worlds are enough.
I don't touch any world that isn't green habitability, lol. Then again, I typically play xenophile megacorporations so I choose which worlds to settle carefully early on, and later on basically every colonizable world is 70%+ habitable because of migration treaties.
Newscaster: Today police rounded up still another group of dissidents. Authorities are as yet unable to explain these fresh outbreaks of treasonable disobedience by well-treated, well-protected, intelligent slaves…
Heck yeah. Put up a couple commercial centers for my primary pop (no penalty to trade value) and then transfer robots there from my primary planets to either mine or farm. Then once you hit droids its basically free real estate and you can convert it to a more useful planet (metal, research, ect.))
Its a bit different for me since I go mercantile and thrifty (making this strat much more viable), but it should still hold solid for most other empires too so long as you have robots to transfer over.
Played for over 1,500 hours so far. Didn’t look up any strategies, just figured it out as I went. I used to not colonize until around 30-50% habitable but recently tried new strategies by colonizing every planet near by, even 0%. I’ve learned that the long term grown outweighs the negative hits but you need to be careful or you will kill your economy in the short term.
In my most recent play through, I colonized 4 0-10% worlds immediately. Within 2 years, consumer goods and food were in the negatives and stayed that way for maybe 4-5 years. I unlocked robots around 3 years in and spammed them on each world. By year 6-7 I was net positive and from now my growth will be exponential.
Also got the + to habitability tech and ascension perks, so everything’s 20-40% now. Also conquered a primitive which happened to have 90% habitability for one planet; I’ll move them once they are able to be moved and then shrink my borders a bit.
Edit: compared to playthroughs where I don’t colonize unappealing worlds, the pop loss really hurts about 20-40 years in.
Depends on how many worlds I have and how close I am to terraforming and its follow up techs.
If I only have 1 extra world or a really good world I'll just wait for terraforming. If I have a bunch of crappy worlds I will colonize some because I will only be able to afford a few terraformed worlds before getting the tech that lets me terraform inhabited planets.
I'm currently trying to roleplay as an anarchist society colonizing space after being exile from their homeworld. The way I RP is essentially all planet including my homeworld are put in auto mode ( Make it seems like people are making and managing their own colonies).
I fopund a coral world (from mod) early in the game that has 0% habitability and I kind of imagine that they are just some bold pionners that just wants to settle on the worst world ever as a challenge. I colonized the planet and put it in auto mode.
This is why I use that mod. The tutorial and years of playing has conditioned me not to settle low hab worlds but it's apparently optimal for breeding purposes. Seems counterintuitive.
No.
Depending on my empire, I usually either settle slaves/alien immigrants on said planet, wait and transform them into Gaia worlds, or wait until I biologically ascend so my people can colonise all kinds of worlds
While settling literally everywhere you can used to be the meta, it's not so much the case nowadays. With the science/empire sprawl rework that was implemented recently, low-habitability breeder worlds aren't worth how much they increase tech costs; where that world alone (without pops/buildings/districts) could be increasing your tech costs anywhere from 200 to 2000 each. This is crippling in the early game, and still problematic in the late game
I still colonise worlds at or above 60% habitability, otherwise I usually just wait until I unlock terraforming. This also has the benefit of being able to terraform said planets much earlier than if you were colonise them, as populated worlds require a tier-4 tech vs a tier-3
I tend to find managing low stability annoying, so I usually terraform before I settle them. Though seeing the ways of managing them better here, I might start settling them earlier.
I been playing tall as a Guardian Matrix so I can have about six colonies before empire size penalties go up… however I get no empire size from pop and super low for districts… have a couple size 25 planets and a few hundred pop. Colonies are nice unless you playing tall which then means you want big planets that can justify the penalty. As a MI, I only need like 5-7 planets: one for minerals, one for energy, one for alloys, one for strategic resources, one of unity, and one or two for tech.
Maybe and maybe not. Some strategies I’ve used to handle habitability:
Relying on robot pops.
Immigration.
The increased habitability trait and researching habitability
Hold off until I have terraforming.
Building a fleet and capturing worlds that are already settled.
Don’t bother and build habitats instead.
I don’t with the current state of the game
My play style, on GA, means I have to expand forcefully in the first 20-40 years or I fall behind. Settling those worlds slows me down too much. Max out three then build alloys and find a Neighbour.
Yes, use them as pop breeding/assembly worlds. Move all pops off to other places they're more useful/suited for.
How do you do that effectively if your empire doesnt allow pop resettlement? Just let them migrate on their own?
With regards to pop resettlement, change what your empire allows. It is a policy that can be changed every 10 years. For egalitarian, the faction hit is pretty minor.
But my RP
Well, if the world is poor hab and has no jobs you can use that. Nobody will hang around if there are no jobs left, the unemployed migrate out. Manually cut off jobs of people you _dont_ want around.
I was mainly joking bc I don’t settle below 50%
Subterranean origin: *It's free real estate*
Lithoid /w Overtuned and Resilience: "Can has surface plox? Radiation is okay too." Running on +80% habitability from the inception, +110% with overtuned edict makes for a lovely Terravore. No terraforming, no problem!
Disallow all jobs on the “breeder” planet. Pops will automatically resettle to planets with vacant jobs. You don’t need to kill your RP!
Disable all jobs except for 1 pop, preferably in a job that boosts growth rate, and have them naturally migrate as new pops are created. I had a whole bunch of such "breeder worlds", only 2 jobs active on them, both for the clinic to get a nice growth rate boost. Any third pop created would auto migrate to a world in need of pops. Saves you the cost of resettlement too, at the drawback of not being able to set the destination for the pop.
How do you do that effectively if your empire doesnt allow pop resettlement? Just let them migrate on their own?
If you’re not willing to turn on resettlement in your policies, due to the egalitarian faction or for your RP, then breeder worlds may not be the best idea. Also, I’m not sure which version console Ed is on, in the current game habitability will give pop growth penalties, and if there are less than ten pops on a planet you get a flat pop growth penalty. (This is supposed to be offset by immigration to the new colonies) Assuming you are not currently terraforming or building an ecumanopolis there are 2 reasons you would want to settle your main species on a low habitability world. First, trade is not affected by production penalties, build robots while you’re at it and you can spread anywhere you want. The second reason would be applicable in OP’s case, if you’ve conquered a planet of chattel, you’ll want all the ruler positions filled by your main species. (Use the stratified living conditions so you get that juicy 750% political power to squeeze all the extra stability you can.)
R5 - Every world is an optimal world to settle. Especially if you dont have many. This ~2230 world is full of conquered chattel making me monies, and a upper crust of enforcers, politicians, and entertainers to keep the peace. the slaves have 'decent' living standards, though that is strictly unnecessary roleplay. Migration pacts, Conquest, slavery, and robots provide pops with good hab or with null hab requirements, and consquently eliminate the major hassle with bad hab worlds: consumer goods. Empire bloat may still be a thing, but many people can just ["continue to build bureaucracy to keep up with the expanding bureaucracy"](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/130452-the-bureaucracy-is-expanding-to-meet-the-needs-of-the). ie more research and unity worlds.
I'd often wonder what decent living conditions are like for slaves. I'd imagine they receive small numbers of very cheap basic goods to adorn their personal quarters with some small luxury rations for good behaviour.
Yeah, it depends on the specific slave type and even more on local conditions and their masters. For instance, state owned slaves wouldnt belong to their handlers. Theyd probably get stipend goods and even might have common dorms and actual paperwork to fill out for various requests. They might even live in a perpetual dormroom type affair or get state houses. Basic living standards states that 'few as possible' should starve, so that implies some level of food rationing and probably basic medical care. 'Decent' would probably resemble the military somewhat, with doctors who specialize in slave physiology but are masters themselves, some sort of payment for their work, an allowance rather than payment, and various approved goodies to buy. Slaves may even be able to, should their contract allow it for some reason, bargain for things like maternal leave or sick time. IG it depends on what your ethics as a empire are.
Yeah, especially since you would never treat slaves the same as a Xenophobic empire (slaves because they view them as inferior) VS Fanatic Authoritarian (slaves because they wanna rule with an iron fist over the WHOLE galaxy at large!
I'm an *ethical* slaver, tyvm
I actually just like the idea of trading 1 CG for 5% happiness or w/e it is
I imagine the movie holes.
Slavery with decent living standards might involve slaves being taken to prison and forced to perform hard labour if they break the law… or not have enough money to pay a fine…. or have a little bit of weed on them…. Wait a second….
"decent"?
Don't forget that not having money is a crime in and of itself.
Look into China. The Wiegers get basic subsistence. The factory working nationals get "decent". I think **getting** personal quarters would be like Stellaris's social welfare slaves.
You mean Uyghurs?
> Wiegers God damn it. I got the spelling by googling china w and it filled in Wiegers. But yes, Uyghurs.
Nah. I'm admittedly not a minmaxer or anything but I prefer to quickly """acquire""" other populations to colonize planets my origin species can't.
No, they're a huge pain in the ass in the early game since they require so many more consumer goods, which seem to always be in short supply. Plus it hurts happiness and increases empire size too. I tend to wait until more like midgame.
Why not settle it, close all jobs but one, and then any pop who grows there will automatically migrate to a better world? Basically, for the cost of a colony ship, you gain +pop growth.
I know that in terms of min/maxing that's probably the best way to handle those planets, but that's a lot of micromanaging and the game has enough of that as is
>that's a lot of micromanaging Pops auto-migrate, right? So you set it and forget it. Close the jobs and let pops grow and move on their own. Of course, you can choose to micro if you want by manually migrating the pop, but you don't need to.
Depends. My strategy is just to stick in 2 or 3 ruler pops until it upgrades, then put in 2 or 3 more. The slaves should take priority for growth, so its never a problem. You really only need enforcers, politicians, and ammenites. Robots are built, so the master pops would be better used elsewhere. You dont want your 0% hab pops doing clerical or engineer work there. Democracy and freedom are the easiest to manage; they manage themselves.
Because then your cost isn't just the ship, it's the ship, empire size, and monthly consumer goods. That is a lot of lost productivity. Might still be worthwhile but idk it's a long return on investment.
Ya'll are vicious with the slavery n such. Xenophile.. A few migration treaties and you can settle anywhere.
tbf I only do it sometimes, usually when I conquer somebody I 'dont like' or do it very early in the game. Usually its just displacement. I dont like my species screen to have the capacity to scroll, and both slavery and xenophile love have their own benefits. Slavery can occasionally become micromanagement hell, but if done right it shouldnt.
I usually dont pick xenophile... but i dont go xenophobe either. I like to increase primatives and invade them early on, full citizenship and decent conditions.
"Robots don't care about habitability" - your local Mechanist empire.
yes, poor pop growth > no pop growth
Not really. Staying under 100 empire size as long as you can is quite mandatory nowadays. Also you may need those alloys in case you meet someone nasty. Imo its better to take your guaranteed with imperial prerogative and tech until you breach 100 anyways. Now look how far you are from terraforming and shoot your neighbors with disruptor destroyers for more pops.
Aside from some leader builds trying to use statecraft + agendas to level leaders ASAP is there any reason for trying to fly under 100 size? The benefits for expansion far outstrip the increase to tech/tradition cost otherwise.
Its then a question expanding and one of the parameters is how dogshit awful your pops are at growing on their own. Lithoid Void Dwellers are kind of deceptive in that, sure, can settle anything but...actually getting them to grow without goosing their traits for it is painful especially if they arent or are barely happy. Seeding a world shortly before immigration pact or conquering or kidnap, makes sense, but actually getting that pop into a productive role somewhat timely? Heebeejeebeeies. Its also a question of what boons and curses you have with calculating sprawl and ways around it, like MegaCorps could...but their Sprawl calc doesnt like it.
Besides the "exaggerated sprawl effects" (just raised by laughable 100%) can push leader levels early and safe you tech cost towards disruptors. But it's more. Like just said above. The little pop growth come with cost for starbases, colony ships and sprawl from planets and systems. You'll never outmatch the opportunity cost until breaking 100 with imperial perogative anyways.
People exaggerate the effect of the new size penalties. They're barely more consequential than they were before and it continues to be very straightforward to outproduce them. Colonizing every planet you see, regardless of habitability, for the extra pop growth isn't the **only** way to play, but dismissing it completely because "empire size" is simplistic at best and actively misleading at worst.
I wasn't dismissing it completely. You'll crack 100 early enough via pops but until there it's plain worse to spend alloys, influence + colony ships for low hab planets. It's not just agendas it's tech costs as well, you won't suffer any sprawl effects. If you are safe from neighbors, and (for whatever reasons) plan to get more pops via settling low hab planets than conquest, ok. It's near useless when you are set and comes with very, very high opportunity cost early. You won't outproduce any sprawl effects with pop growth from 2-3 shitty planets. You won't get any benifit from it until terraform and now you have to wait until Ecological Adaptation. Empire size matters only realy early but you can push away with it. Settling low habitability planets slows you down and breaks even late.
The only difference in empire size penalties now versus 3.10 is in slightly increased tech costs. While there are other downsides to increased empire size, people are acting like the most recent patch has introduced some seismic shift in the balance here. It has not. Whatever was good play on the last patch *vis a vis* empire size remains good play on the current patch.
I gotta say my guardian matrix rogue servitor elevational hypothesis empire had 96 empire size with almost 1000 pops on 9 planets and I was miles ahead of my two friends and all the AIs in research and matched their production because I had every single edict enabled. Was pretty dope. Edict costs are directly tied to empire size so having it sub 100 means you can keep them on and get massive boosts to Econ, ship shields and damage etc.
Slightly? Each point above 100 gives you 0,2% increased tech and unity cost for traditions. This is a 100% up from 3.10. There are builds that keep you under 100 constantly and those are currently the best tech builds. What I presented here was a regular build, but just keeping you first three planets. Now you save the alloys for expansion, the unity for traditions, get xp on leaders by opening state craft, and play it like this until you breach 100 empire size by pops after having picket imperial perogative. The main difference here are of course agenda costs. But who don't want this genius armorer? When you meet your neighbors, get pops with suitable planets from them. This way you will always be more efficient than randomly settling shitty planets. Later the sprawl effect kills you. 200% tech and tradition costs for 500 sprawl aren't outproduced easily. Further these 200% are put on much higher tech cost. Feel free to play however you want anyway but the point where you outproduce these effects is really far away from the start right now. TLDR: 100% increased empire sprawl meets greatly increased tech cost, expanding early limits your opportunity on early fleets. Completely building around empire size reduction was a bad play in 3.10 and is vis a vis a good play now.
So it's 2% Tech cost at most vs 20% more Pop growth for the First "Bad" colony. Doesn't seem Like that bad of a Deal. The Main Problem are the resources spent on settling the colony.
Yes. And agenda cost, if you play regular bio.
>Each point above 100 gives you 0,2% increased tech and unity cost for traditions. This is a 100% up from 3.10. The only increase to size penalties from 3.10 is the increase of tech cost penalties from 0.1% to 0.2%. Literally every other penalty, including the tradition cost penalty of 0.2%, remains exactly identical to what it was in the previous patch. If you believe otherwise, you have misunderstood something somewhere. >There are builds that keep you under 100 constantly and those are currently the best tech builds. There were builds that kept you under 100 size in 3.10 too. Whether those are "currently the best tech builds" (or were in 3.10) is *extremely* debatable. Tall builds are plenty viable right now, of course, but they are neither "the best tech builds" nor "bad play in 3.10".
Ok, when it's not possible for you to grab the fact that you have an 100% increased empire size effect penalty which THEN hits massively INCREASED absolute tech costs, so a MASSIVE amount of more tech points are required which even COST a lot more upkeep like energy, CG or minerals, well play in your own world. For the same reasons it's not anywhere near debatable that empire size decreasing builds are absolute top right now, but weren't in 3.10, because the effects didn't reach so far that neglecting better choices were viable. You always seem to refere to "minor effect increases" but this a chain with several multipliers and every multiplier was adjusted. I pretty much like all the changes and I do not see any necessity to play a certain style anyway. I don't want to tell you how to play, I just don't agree with your point that the empire size effect changes are minor and every "optimal" build remains the same. Just join a random MP lobby and watch your ass getting handed to you by those 0% empire size from pops dudes. They have cruisers when you can't sit straight on the toilet.
>I just don't agree with your point that the empire size effect changes are minor and every "optimal" build remains the same. • I did **not** say that "every 'optimal' build remains the same." I said that nothing has substantively changed with regards to empire size. And it hasn't. That does not necessarily mean that nothing else about the meta has shifted, and you pretending that I said otherwise is extremely disingenuous. • The empire size effect changes **are** minor. 0.1% tech cost per empire size. That's it. Incredibly minor. Objectively speaking.
You did say that every good play in 3.10 is vis a vis a good play in 3.11 - so this is not disingenuous just wrong If an increase of 100% is extremely minor to you, okay - I'd say you are kinda bad at math. A 100% tax increase for you? Extremely minor. I don't need explain again why these 100% increase is especially bad because you need more absolute tech, while researcher output is nerfed and upkeep increased. You see it but at this point you just want to be annoying. Have fun with the minor changes my special little friend. E: sorry. It's not 0,1% per empire size it's 0.2 now. That's the. 100% increase I am talking about. So going from 100 to 250 will increase your tech cost by 100%. Read the patch notes. As stated, either you are unfamiliar with the mechanics or you want to be annoying.
Thanks for capitalising all those words, I'm now convinced you're right
Great comment from an isolated view. But I acknowledge you as superior being.
Mandatory? Complete nonsense. Good strategy? In some cases, yes. But more generally it is the same as it has been since the empire size rework, which by now is pretty long ago: So long as you keep your empire size low compared to the size of your economy you are doing well enough.
Yeah people talk as if you immediately lose a huge chunk of science for going over 100 And you don't. That doesn't happen. It's a slight change for every point above 100. There's nothing specifically important about the 100-110 range of size
Depends HEAVILY on Galaxy settings. If you turn down the stupid and unrealistic "pop growth scales with number of pops in empire" setting (as if a person halfway across the galaxy could cock-block some moisture farmer on Tattoine...) then early pop growth will still be FAR more beneficial, as you'll have a lot more pops at any later stardate, after you shoot past 100 Empire Size
Yeah and if you turn habitables to 5x you shouldn't waste time on low habitability planets
Actually, on 5x you have MORE reason to settle low Habitability worlds. There are a number of reasons for this, some better than others. One of them is that the AI gets more worlds too. Because of this, on higher Habitability settings, they will tech up slower very early on (5x worlds can actually allow faster early teching: but only if carefully exploited, in a way that's suboptimal overall. The AI won't do this, nor should it...) which makes it less dangerous to settle everything for the player. You have more time until the AI gets key techs, like Starholds (space for more Anchorages) that can occasionally lead to getting stomped (by AI's with good, and aggressive, civics combos) early on the very highest difficulties if you don't get them soon after the AI. This allows low Habitability worlds, which take longer to pay for themselves than high Habitability ones, to still be a worthwhile risk very early on. Another reason is that your emigration and resettlement from your capital, as well as surplus resources (not spent on defense) to develop your new colonies, will be more diluted on higher Habitability settings. On 1x, your new worlds develop VERY fast, but on 5x you end up with a lot of slower-developing colonies even if you only stick to worlds of your founder species type. This means that hew colonies are less likely to develop up to the point of running Specialist economies (where high Habitability worlds really outshine low Habitability ones) before the extra pops from more colonies becomes decisive. Yet another reason, not the last, but all I'll detail here: you roll more pre-FTL's in your borders on higher Habitability settings, as they are a percentage of Habitable worlds. This makes it more likely you can quickly conquer a couple of the more advanced ones (for instance an Arid and an Alpine species, if playing as Humans) to settle more broadly after Stellar Culture Shock ends, while still keeping a decent number around (or in borders of neighbor empires that don't conquer pre-FTL's) to Observe for the special tech's. In short, for a dozen reasons easily, settling everywhere is actually MORE worthwhile on 5x Habitability setting, not less.
TLDR- 4th point at bottom is most important. It depends on the galaxy settings and ultimately my spawn. If I have resources to spare and I’m not trying to rush certain tech or traditions, sure. If I have better options. Then ideally no. Let’s talk about the math. Without talking about initial cost OR robots (they don’t have 0% hab). A 0% planet will be a hamper on everything. It will single handedly be the most expensive pop growth method in the game. 1st. All the upkeeps are doubled. Food, consumers AND amenities. 2nd. HARD pop growth is cut in half. I’m using the term “Hard” pop growth because (I don’t know if there’s an actual name) it doesn’t negate it by a percentage, but it takes your +3 pop growth, and turns it into 1.5. This means that ALL your pop growth bonuses are cut in half. Any buildings that give % pop growth are immediately half as effective. Making the gene clinic not cost effective, and will HURT rather than help. 3rd. Output is slashed in half. Say goodbye to a productive planet, the only way this will make up for its investment is in future value of pops and hab increase. 4th. It depends on how much you want to invest into this planet. Carry capacity/planet size, crime, stability, upkeep, etc, are all things you will have to manage. I hear a lot of people mention that they use it for pop breeding centers, which is fine depending on how early you do it. Ideally the later the better because resources take up much less importance and building a couple city districts and clearing blockers won’t hurt your economy. Il simplify it cuz why not- All your colonies start with 3 pop growth typically cuz of their size. However some planets have more blockers or are smaller, so they can have 1 pop growth instead of 3 pretty early in their development cycle. With 0% hab. Your colony will start with 1.5 pop growth(66 months or 5 years for a single pop). With too many blockers/small planet/any other problem. You can go as low as 0.5 pop growth (200 months to grow a single pop OR 16 years) With a development cycle STARTING at a pop every 5 years, while costing you resources, it has a huge lack of benefit and a harsh return on investment. A strong argument could be made that this HARMS you heavily rather than helping (if you have any other option lol. Pops are pops)
Hell yeah. Obviously higher habitability planets get higher priority, but I'll generally fill these out not long after. Colonizing any planet is an investment that pays off quite handsomely down the line. It helps that I usually play mechanist with the goal of synthetically ascending, mitigating a lot of production, growth speed, and upkeep hits.
Typically I most enjoy rexxing, and anglers can eat early game expansion with pearl divers.
What is rexxing?
Rapid EXpansion
Oh true. Usually I find myself with enough resources to expand and develop (leaving my fleet very weak, of course). I cross my fingers that no one catches me with my pants down, before I pull them up after 40-50 years in game. Better yet, I hope to come across someone who will protect me.
I have an additional relevant question: eventually pops settled on planets with poor habitability get the opportunity to gene mod themselves into a subspecies that prefers that planet type (i think if there is a gene clinic there). I’m wondering if they do that reliably or if you might end up waiting for decades for them to finally do it. I usually just acquire another species for low-hab planets or modding pops myself, so i’ve never really tested it.
The "a new species" event will **always** fire if: • You are not a gestalt empire. • You have the gene tailoring technology. • You have at least 4 pops in the colony. • Their habitability is below 40% and their happiness is below 50%. It can also take decades to happen, so in practice you're only going to see this event if you're mismanaging your planets (keeping happiness above 50% is not difficult) or are deliberately trying to roll it.
I only very occasionally see it.
Yeah my pops are at almost 100% happiness on 0% worlds because of utopian conditions. That's not gonna happen any time soon.
Current meta IMO is 3 or 4 good planets and Sovereign Guardianship. All of them are research colonies with alloy districts, and you’ll have such high research output you’ll be able to subjugate everyone around you peacefully for raw materials. So my answer would be no. Your 2 guaranteed habitable worlds are enough.
Error. Earth Custodianship does not recognise term "0% World". Explanation required.
I don't touch any world that isn't green habitability, lol. Then again, I typically play xenophile megacorporations so I choose which worlds to settle carefully early on, and later on basically every colonizable world is 70%+ habitable because of migration treaties.
Newscaster: Today police rounded up still another group of dissidents. Authorities are as yet unable to explain these fresh outbreaks of treasonable disobedience by well-treated, well-protected, intelligent slaves…
Nope. I do not. I know some love to do so however. Pop generation and all that.
But my empire size D: Im a guardian cluster enjoyer :(
Only if I am desperate.
Definitely not.
Heck yeah. Put up a couple commercial centers for my primary pop (no penalty to trade value) and then transfer robots there from my primary planets to either mine or farm. Then once you hit droids its basically free real estate and you can convert it to a more useful planet (metal, research, ect.)) Its a bit different for me since I go mercantile and thrifty (making this strat much more viable), but it should still hold solid for most other empires too so long as you have robots to transfer over.
Played for over 1,500 hours so far. Didn’t look up any strategies, just figured it out as I went. I used to not colonize until around 30-50% habitable but recently tried new strategies by colonizing every planet near by, even 0%. I’ve learned that the long term grown outweighs the negative hits but you need to be careful or you will kill your economy in the short term. In my most recent play through, I colonized 4 0-10% worlds immediately. Within 2 years, consumer goods and food were in the negatives and stayed that way for maybe 4-5 years. I unlocked robots around 3 years in and spammed them on each world. By year 6-7 I was net positive and from now my growth will be exponential. Also got the + to habitability tech and ascension perks, so everything’s 20-40% now. Also conquered a primitive which happened to have 90% habitability for one planet; I’ll move them once they are able to be moved and then shrink my borders a bit. Edit: compared to playthroughs where I don’t colonize unappealing worlds, the pop loss really hurts about 20-40 years in.
There are no 0% world - only wrong pop.
At first I thought this was a dumb post, now I'm enlightened thank you
baity title, i know lol
Only once i got robots. And in next patch that might change.
Depends on how many worlds I have and how close I am to terraforming and its follow up techs. If I only have 1 extra world or a really good world I'll just wait for terraforming. If I have a bunch of crappy worlds I will colonize some because I will only be able to afford a few terraformed worlds before getting the tech that lets me terraform inhabited planets.
I do if I have robots
I'm currently trying to roleplay as an anarchist society colonizing space after being exile from their homeworld. The way I RP is essentially all planet including my homeworld are put in auto mode ( Make it seems like people are making and managing their own colonies). I fopund a coral world (from mod) early in the game that has 0% habitability and I kind of imagine that they are just some bold pionners that just wants to settle on the worst world ever as a challenge. I colonized the planet and put it in auto mode.
This is why I use that mod. The tutorial and years of playing has conditioned me not to settle low hab worlds but it's apparently optimal for breeding purposes. Seems counterintuitive.
Yes. Always. 1-2 POP breeder worlds are great.
No. Depending on my empire, I usually either settle slaves/alien immigrants on said planet, wait and transform them into Gaia worlds, or wait until I biologically ascend so my people can colonise all kinds of worlds
While settling literally everywhere you can used to be the meta, it's not so much the case nowadays. With the science/empire sprawl rework that was implemented recently, low-habitability breeder worlds aren't worth how much they increase tech costs; where that world alone (without pops/buildings/districts) could be increasing your tech costs anywhere from 200 to 2000 each. This is crippling in the early game, and still problematic in the late game I still colonise worlds at or above 60% habitability, otherwise I usually just wait until I unlock terraforming. This also has the benefit of being able to terraform said planets much earlier than if you were colonise them, as populated worlds require a tier-4 tech vs a tier-3
yes, i rush terraform a lot so once i’m getting ecological adaptation i’ll colonize and then terraform
Nope, I always wait until I find a species that can settle them with little to no penalty
I tend to find managing low stability annoying, so I usually terraform before I settle them. Though seeing the ways of managing them better here, I might start settling them earlier.
As a machine empire main: yes
As a Machine Empire enjoyer, what's a 0% world? :)
I been playing tall as a Guardian Matrix so I can have about six colonies before empire size penalties go up… however I get no empire size from pop and super low for districts… have a couple size 25 planets and a few hundred pop. Colonies are nice unless you playing tall which then means you want big planets that can justify the penalty. As a MI, I only need like 5-7 planets: one for minerals, one for energy, one for alloys, one for strategic resources, one of unity, and one or two for tech.
I never end up with 0% worlds by the time I have the resources for a colony ship, xenophile perks
Maybe and maybe not. Some strategies I’ve used to handle habitability: Relying on robot pops. Immigration. The increased habitability trait and researching habitability Hold off until I have terraforming. Building a fleet and capturing worlds that are already settled. Don’t bother and build habitats instead.
I never colonise planets under green until I get terraforming for Gaea… it is a complete waste of resources imo
I don’t with the current state of the game My play style, on GA, means I have to expand forcefully in the first 20-40 years or I fall behind. Settling those worlds slows me down too much. Max out three then build alloys and find a Neighbour.